


Captivated

by 4vrAFangirl



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 02 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 09:51:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6799075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4vrAFangirl/pseuds/4vrAFangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thoughts of one Marjor Edmund Hewlett while he is being held in the Rebel camp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captivated

**Author's Note:**

> Want a peek behind the scenes of writing these stories? Got a prompt or idea for a fic you'd like to see? I write for all manner of fandoms and ships! Drop me a note on my Tumblr: [4vraFangirl](http://www.4vrafangirl.tumblr.com)

It’s cold. So bitterly cold. Hewlett cannot stop himself from shivering any longer, and he’s long since given up fighting doing so. What does it matter? They’ve robbed him nearly every inch of his dignity now. It’s only the cold that keeps the stink of him, of the piss and shit in the opposite corner from being overwhelming. He’s watched three toes on his right foot turn from flesh to black, and can no longer feel it when he touches or squeezes them. His throat aches. They are waiting for Washington’s blessing, they say, before he’s to be executed; but it seems the company has no compunction about withholding food, water, clothes, or basic civilities while they wait, keeping him alive, but only just. It’s been a day now since the last time they gave him anything to drink, but he continues speaking anyway. He speaks to himself, since no other man will; he speaks to God, to the stars, but most of all to Anna. Her scream still echoes in ears, haunts him, and as days have turned into weeks his mind has weakened and become powerless to do anything to slow the onslaught of dread and nightmarish fates for her that his fear and imagination provide all too readily. Her beautiful face often swims before his tired eyes.

When they take from him even his view of the heavens, he weeps, for it seems certain now that all is lost. He stares unblinking, unflinchingly at the now frozen solid tongue of the Rebel’s slain captain that was thrown in with him, and begins to question his actions and sanity. _Had he done this? Could he? Has he been possessed, or even a demon himself?_

The metal is cold as he reaches out and takes the knife in hand. It’s blade could scarcely be called sharp, but if he can summon enough strength, exude enough pressure, it should make little difference. Fingers flex, and tighten around it’s handle with as much vigor as he can muster, probably all that he has left, as he draws it to his wrist, then hesitates.

He will burn for eternity on the lake of fire if he takes his life into his own hands, steals what is God's to wield. What would they tell his mother? Anna? What will become of them in his absence? Setauket? Will his second be wary and strong enough to fight Simcoe and his company when they inevitably seek to wrest control of the town from him?

_Simcoe._

Suddenly, a flash of dawning comprehension, and his weakened mind and will find strength renewed. Edmund is not a monster, a demon. He is a gentleman. A man of reason, rather than blood. A child of God. He would not dream of doing something so heinous and dishonorable as the man who slew this company's captain, but he knows someone who would. Someone who might like nothing better than to frame the Major for it, and get him out of the way.

Perhaps if he can but tell the men that hold him, convince them of at least the possibility that he has been unjustly accused, they may yet decide to spare his life. There is of course no guarantee that they will grant him audience, much less believe his story, but he must try. He does not want to die. But if he must, then he will not confess to a crime, a sin that is not his own. He will die with the truth, and the little honor and integrity the rebels have not yet taken from him. He will die fighting for his life and freedom to his last breath. And he will start with his toes.

They are all but dead now, as a man of science and an officer in his Majesty's Royal army he knows the signs of severe frostbite. He knows his fingers will be the next to fall victim to the cold as well unless his circumstances change for the better, and soon, but his blackened toes are beyond saving now. His only hope to prevent it's spread and the loss of his entire right foot will be to cut them off and hope for treatment later. He bites his already chapped lips so hard they begin to bleed, and cannot stop himself from crying out in pain, but it would be worse now to stop than to see the job completed. Finally blackened toes join the frozen tongue some feet away from the rest of his huddled form.

He's disfigured himself. A necessary task if he is to have any hopes of surviving this ghastly ordeal, but no less traumatic than anything else he has suffered at the hands of his captors. This trauma will be one he will be forced to confront and remember for the rest of his life. True, few soldiers that return from conflict do not do so without some kind of battle scar, but at the very least walking and dancing are likely to be a far greater challenge than they had previously been for him.

Before his capture he had hoped, perhaps despite his 'play-tonic' rambling when he had first offered his friendship to Mrs. Strong, that there may be, even the slightest chance she may someday wish for something more with him. Respect for Anna, her feelings, and the grieving she must be doing even if her husband has proved traitor, have kept him silent, subtle. But he knows, knew even when he awkwardly suggested their friendship, that he would much rather be a far more serious, intimate, and enduring companion to her. He is in love with her. Loves her as he has loved nothing and no one else, or indeed believes that he ever will. He has said as much, at least a hundred times over, if only to her memory, the ghost which has kept him company these many frigid days and nights. If ever he escapes this wretched place, he resolves himself, he will own up to it and lay his desires and intentions bare at her feet.

So resolved, and now determined to push the ugliest of possibilities of what has become of her in his absence from his mind he begins to strategize means of escape from his imprisonment, and rehearsing his confession.

He will never thank the demon that brought on his cruel suffering, though it would surely enrage Simcoe to think he in fact helped to provide his means of escaping. It can only be God's Devine intervention, providence, which brought all the pieces together so. That his toes were frozen enough to numb most of the pain, that the rebels had given him the means to defend himself in the hopes he would take his life, that Simcoe had felt the need to taunt rather than simply shoot him and be done with it.

It is day now, a bright, but cloudy winter's one, no stars yet to be seen at an hour such as this, but just being able to see the open sky again as he lays back on the boat, largely ignoring Robeson's ramblings, is a blessing. He can wait for the stars. He has waited this long. And he can wait for what he thinks must be God's brightest one, for as long as it takes.

 _I'm coming home Anna_ , he thinks softy, with a weak but happy smile as exhaustion overtakes him.


End file.
